Post by Kennet Caern on Aug 26, 2022 19:30:36 GMT -5
She was no longer looking at him. It was easier that way. Her gaze tracked elsewhere, across the sheets thrown across her bed, the pale morning light pooling under the window, the nightgown folded across the bench at the end of her bed. Anywhere but at him.
“I’ve always been…adept with potions,” she remarked, swallowing a knot her in her throat while her chin lifted against her own failures. “I should have known better than to try it.” Perhaps she should have gone to Hadrian. To Alys, even. Even now the thought of going to Cassian with this, this failure—this pretentious unwillingness to do the one thing she was meant to do—was out of the question, and yet…she could have.
Embarrassment had stilled her. Pride had held her.
“But I thought I could manage. On my own.” Her chin felt, jaw drawn in a tight line as she turned to cross the room, strategically putting her back to him so that he might not notice when she lifted her hand to wipe the tears from her face with an irritated flick of her wrist. “It was only supposed to be for that first season, to give us time to get to know another. Once we did…”
Her voice trailed off for a second time. She reached the window sill a moment later. “I didn’t think the world needed another Larcien Caern.” Kennet did her best to edge the bitterness from her voice, to mask it behind a huff of empty laughter as she turned, looking for Hadrian once more. “Even so, after a couple years—” despite finding him, her eyes fell short of reaching his—“I thought it’d be easier if I tried. If I—” gave him what he wanted—Kennet shook her head, wiping the thought away with a determined smile—“It doesn’t matter. There must have been something…off in my recipe. After I stopped taking the potion…I conceived eventually. Twice actually,” she admitted on a hollow note. “The first didn’t last a season. The second didn’t last two.”
She spared him the details, finally lifting a resigned look to meet his gaze. Her smile wavered, faltering at the corners of her lips as she watched him from across the room, certain he would see now why she kept her face hidden behind so many masks, why it was better that he never really look at what stood behind the candle casting the shadow on the wall:
Kennet Delaney was a lie. A character whose name she wore. Marriage had made it impossible to hide. There were no doors to close, no private, unseen spaces where she could mend her costume in peace. Over time, even her most tightly woven masks had frayed. The character she wore unraveled.
She was meant to control Larcien, to bring him and his ilk to heel. But she hadn't even been capable of controlling his fists. She was meant to bear his children. But even the contraceptives she mixed had been a failure. Now—
“So if it’s children you want…” Kennet wanted to look anywhere other than at Hadrian, but held her gaze on his, green eyes glassy with regret even as she willed herself to drag up one last smile accompanied by one last, wet laugh. “You might want to come to your senses sooner rather than later.”
Because he had been content to live his life between the legs of other men’s wives. What other reason was there to want to take one for himself now, after all this time? Kennet held her smile in place, holding up the corners of her lips with a force of will even she was unaware she possessed while she waited for him to realize what she had known all along: that this was a mistake.
“I’ve always been…adept with potions,” she remarked, swallowing a knot her in her throat while her chin lifted against her own failures. “I should have known better than to try it.” Perhaps she should have gone to Hadrian. To Alys, even. Even now the thought of going to Cassian with this, this failure—this pretentious unwillingness to do the one thing she was meant to do—was out of the question, and yet…she could have.
Embarrassment had stilled her. Pride had held her.
“But I thought I could manage. On my own.” Her chin felt, jaw drawn in a tight line as she turned to cross the room, strategically putting her back to him so that he might not notice when she lifted her hand to wipe the tears from her face with an irritated flick of her wrist. “It was only supposed to be for that first season, to give us time to get to know another. Once we did…”
Her voice trailed off for a second time. She reached the window sill a moment later. “I didn’t think the world needed another Larcien Caern.” Kennet did her best to edge the bitterness from her voice, to mask it behind a huff of empty laughter as she turned, looking for Hadrian once more. “Even so, after a couple years—” despite finding him, her eyes fell short of reaching his—“I thought it’d be easier if I tried. If I—” gave him what he wanted—Kennet shook her head, wiping the thought away with a determined smile—“It doesn’t matter. There must have been something…off in my recipe. After I stopped taking the potion…I conceived eventually. Twice actually,” she admitted on a hollow note. “The first didn’t last a season. The second didn’t last two.”
She spared him the details, finally lifting a resigned look to meet his gaze. Her smile wavered, faltering at the corners of her lips as she watched him from across the room, certain he would see now why she kept her face hidden behind so many masks, why it was better that he never really look at what stood behind the candle casting the shadow on the wall:
Kennet Delaney was a lie. A character whose name she wore. Marriage had made it impossible to hide. There were no doors to close, no private, unseen spaces where she could mend her costume in peace. Over time, even her most tightly woven masks had frayed. The character she wore unraveled.
She was meant to control Larcien, to bring him and his ilk to heel. But she hadn't even been capable of controlling his fists. She was meant to bear his children. But even the contraceptives she mixed had been a failure. Now—
“So if it’s children you want…” Kennet wanted to look anywhere other than at Hadrian, but held her gaze on his, green eyes glassy with regret even as she willed herself to drag up one last smile accompanied by one last, wet laugh. “You might want to come to your senses sooner rather than later.”
Because he had been content to live his life between the legs of other men’s wives. What other reason was there to want to take one for himself now, after all this time? Kennet held her smile in place, holding up the corners of her lips with a force of will even she was unaware she possessed while she waited for him to realize what she had known all along: that this was a mistake.